I certainly should have read this before I read G. Willow Wilson’s current POISON IVY run, as there’s a lot that dovetails and reflects on it.
There’s a lot of dissonance, a lot of loss, a lot of weird shit, and a lot of frustration and anger.
However, almost all of that is via Ives.
Harley is a reactionary, bolstering voice here. This is Ivy’s tale, and it’s a messy one and has her reckoning with her past and Harley trying to back her up, but …not exactly able to do so.
What makes Harley & Ivy’s relationship special and significant — especially in the world of mainstream ‘superhero’ comics — is that they fundamentally understand each other. Both have been victims, mentally and physically changed by their abuser. Those changes exacerbated their features and, at times? Harles and Ives are like oil and water, and that is the case here.
Ivy is hellbent on revenge, not just on Floronic Man/Jason Woodrue — the monster who mutated her — but humanity in general. Harley is trying to repent for her prior ways and being a better person for humanity.
Like I said: oil and water.
Harley mostly rolls with Ivy’s plan because she’s ride-or-die, but the relationship is often discordant.
Jody Houser’s script is cutting and dodges when I thought it would weave — there’s one reveal later on in that made me question, well, everything — and the artwork, mostly via Adriana Melo (except when it isn’t) is strikingly focused on close-ups of everyone’s faces and reactions, giving an almost Ingmar Bergman type of intimacy.
As Ivy would like? This series is her world, and we’re just about to be torn asunder.
I have repeatedly said that every film is a fetish.
There is no better example of that than D.E.B.S.
That’s a good thing! Lean into what you’re into! Taste and wants are what make folks unique and often lend themselves to wild storytelling that will resonate for years! Films are incredibly difficult to will into the world and your fetish? That can be the strongest driving force and make the difference as to whether you can realize your vision.
(Unless your tastes or wants are hateful or hurtful and, in which case? Shut your mouth, head home and lock your door because the world does not need that.)
I’d been meaning to watch D.E.B.S. for years, but never got around to it until recently. To summarize? It’s four college schoolmates who are preliminary spies and Amy — the captain of said spies, played by Sara Foster (ex-fashion model and TV host) — falls in love with Lucy (the very striking Jordana Brewster), one of the most sought-after villains on their list.
I knew this film was queer before going into it, but given that it’s a film from the early naughts I assumed the queerness was couched in subtext instead of being explicit.
No. It is very explicit, practically out of the gate. Even though it’s primarily an action/espionage film that on its surface looks like it was willed into the world by a terrible cishet dude, it is really, really queer. This is all about queer awakening from the get-go, and about moving forward into queer safe spaces.
Writer/director Angela Robinson (who also adapted the life of William Moulton Marston via PROFESSOR MARSTON & THE WONDER WOMAN as well as the severely underrated HERBIE: FULLY LOADED) goes for fucking broke here, while still having so much fun with it.
I know I intentionally buried the lede here but all of the D.E.B.S. — which stands for Discipline, Energy, Beauty, Strength — are young women, helmed by the great character actor Holland Taylor, with some assistance from the much-missed Michael Clarke Duncan, clearly riffing on CHARLIE’S ANGELS.
Also? Their uniforms? Catholic schoolgirl outfits. All ties, white dress shirts, and very, very, very short plaid skirts. Robinson definitely knows what she likes — with a bit of satirical (and sartorial, sorry not sorry) and is not afraid to show it off.
Yeah. Really fucking queer. I can’t imagine how many youths were lit up and awakened by this film in the early naughts.
If there’s such a thing as passing the quasi-opposite of the Bechdel test? This film absolutely does so. This is all about women and there is no moment where two men visibly talk together in the same scene. Do you know how fucking rare that is? Especially in an action/comedy film?! And I am absolutely here for it.
D.E.B.S. is spryly paced and full of kinetic action and so well-cast and so, so much fun and again! Really fucking queer in a way that doesn’t think it’s odd that it’s about two women falling in love.
It also helps that the chemistry between Amy and Lucy is off the fucking charts.
While the film absolutely flopped, it has become a queer cult favorite — rightly so, as it’s one of the few queer films that isn’t sad or fridge their queers — and just celebrated its 20th anniversary, which seems wild to me because it’d feel progressive even today.
Addendum
Don’t believe me? I’ve included a number of links extolling its virtues below!
Part twelve of an array of CD mixes I made for my wife over a long number of years! Read more about it here!
I grabbed this photo while walking around Chicago’s Lincoln Square which …isn’t my favorite neighborhood. I know the term ‘yuppie’ doesn’t carry the same cultural weight it used to, but uh, yeah. It’s a straight-laced yuppie neighborhood with a lot of strollers, smug and self-righteous and self-entitled folks, and littered with antiseptic and bland local businesses.
It used to be predominantly a German neighborhood, as Chicago’s stupidly segregated and that’s where a lot of German immigrants moved to and set up shop. Sadly, almost all of the German restaurants and shops are no longer. The cultural flavor of Lincoln Square simply doesn’t exist any more.
There is the Davis Theater, which used to be a charming and cheap shithole, but they remodeled and cleaned it up. However, it remains one of my go-tos for more mainstream films because it is indie and the employees and clientele are awesome. One helped me out with a very difficult situation when someone got way too handsy with me.
Anyway! I couldn’t resist two clouds sucking face and merging with each other.
That rather sums up the entire cover. I am not proud of it. The numerical styling is weak and indistinct and — apart from the building in the corner — it looks pretty fucking boring. However, it is a thing that exists and something I willed into the world, for better or for worse.
Highlights? CALL ME POUPÉE’s svelte Montreal pop of Rumba Maniak! 90s throwback ELASTICA’s radio session of Hold Me Now! The social anxiety of LOVE IS ALL’s 19 Floors! However, my personal favorite? SHRAG’s Talk to the Left [DJ Downfall Entente Cordiale] which is 100% about handjobs and so catchy.
As usual, here’s the format. (Artist / Album / Song):
LENNI JABOUR & THE THIRD FLOOR / Les Dangereuses / Les Fleurs Mécontentes
PARENTHETICAL GIRLS / Entanglements / Windmills of Your Mind
KATZENJAMMER / Le Pop / Mother Superior
CALL ME POUPÉE / Western Shanghai / Rumba Maniak
FLOGGING MOLLY / Float / Float
TITUS ANDRONICUS / The Airing of Grievances / Fear and Loathing in MahWah, NJ
LOS CAMPESINOS! / We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed / Ways to Make It Through the Wall
ELASTICA / The Radio One Sessions / Hold Me Now [Peel]
LOVE IS ALL / A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At / 19 Floors
THE VIOLETS / The Lost Pages / Forget Me Not
BLOOD RED SHOES / Box of Secrets / It’s Getting Boring by the Sea
EVIL NINE / They Live! / They Live! [Felix Cartal]
Part eleven of an array of CD mixes I made for my wife over a long number of years! Read more about it here!
This cover is a staged photo from an old home office. The chair was an old-as-fuck Herman Miller chair that I got from my job. Even though I did clean it for the photo, I’m surprised that it looks as pristine as it does in that photo because the chair was over a decade old and absolutely falling apart. (Note the missing armrest. Also, the backrest was absolutely deteriorating. Yeah, I worked endless hours and days and weeks and months and years sitting in that chair.)
Similarly, the space my wife and myself were renting was held together by spit and baling wire, but did have a very quaint rustic veneer.
If I had to do it over again, I’d tweak the 11 alignment and figure out something better for the longer song titles. Maybe give it a bit more breathing room. Otherwise? I am fucking pleased as punch with it.
And yeah, this is when I glommed onto serif-centric lettering, as evidenced by this site’s current visual theme.
Highlights? VON MAGNET’s ‘Mann Hinter Dem Vorgang’ is an interlaced masterpiece. DIFFERNET’s ‘Survival Kit’ is a gorgeously languid and melancholy five-and-a-half minutes that intentionally stumbles along until it pretends that it finds its confidence. The missed SHRAG’s ‘Forty-Five 45s’ is indie pop perfection, all heartfelt inflection with a steadfast guitarline, and then there’s the vastly underlooked BE YOUR OWN PET ‘Becky’ which is an exceptionally lurid and vibrant reflection of punk 80s verve.
It makes me happy. (Artist / Album / Song):
CAMILLE / Le Fil / Assise
VON MAGNET / Ni prédateur ni proie / Mann Hinter dem Vorhang
LARKIN GRIMM / Parplar / Ride that Cyclone
PALE YOUNG GENTLEMEN / Black Forest (Tra La La) / The Crook of My Good Arm
CROOKED FINGERS / Forfeit/Fortune / Let’s Not Pretend (To Be New Men)
Part ten of an array of CD mixes I made for my wife over a long number of years! Read more about it here!
I know I took this photo while traveling from Chicago to Ohio, as it’s exactly what I’ve seen so many times, but I do not recall doing so.
This cover is fine in print. Just fine. I like the amber tinge. I like the E & T merger, although I probably could have done more there. The digitally resized version? It is practically unreadable.
Godfuckingdamnit I never do myself any favors.
All of that aside, it features one of my motherfucking anthems: BLOOD RED SHOES’ ‘I Wish I was Someone Better’. Saw ’em at Chicago’s Subterranean years ago, a club that is two-tiered but still feels oddly intimate. They performed back-to-back. I don’t mean that in a lineup way — they literally didn’t look each other in the face and one performed facing the left and the other on the right, but it wasn’t hateful or antagonistic. I’ve never seen a performance like that, and the energy was off of the fucking charts.
THE LONG BLONDES’ ‘Big Infatuation’ is absolute pop perfection, all GREASE-influenced but far filthier:
“My back turned to him, showing the ladders of my thighs!
I watched girls within; soaked up the envy in their eyes!”
SLEATER-KINNEY’s The Woods is my absolute favorite album of theirs, all indulgent and resonant hard-rock, and ‘Entertain’ endlessly delights me.
Part nine of an array of CD mixes I made for my wife over a long number of years! Read more about it here!
Fuck. I know what I was going for with this cover: I wanted to recreate old-school medicinal notations and receipts, mostly because I loved this set that we — again — found garagesaling and — again — probably should have purchased. (This will be revisited soon, sadly.)
I absolutely fucked this one up. This is all wrong. It is mostly illegible, even with the drop shadow. It is a misfire; a mess on every level, and I apologize for putting it in front of your eyes.
That said? I’ll remind you? This was only intended for my wife, and I meant it with the best wishes.
It does looks better in-print than on-screen, though.
That aside. This has to be the most exuberant mix I sent along. FIREWATER? THE POLYPHONIC SPREE? ESSER?! PATRICK WOLF and “the major key!!”
This also has one my absolute favorites: THE TING TINGS ‘That’s Not My Name’. I thought everyone except myself forgot about this song until I heard it pop up in the NIMONA trailer which is amazingly appropriate to the point where one might say it’s too on-the-nose because it’s a perfect marriage. I. Fucking. Love. This. Song.
Fuck. Transcribing this playlist is going to ruin my eyes even more than they’re already fucked. (Artist / Album / Song):
RATATAT / LP3 / Shiller
AU / Verbs / RR vs. D
FIREWATER / The Golden Hour / Hey Clown
THE POLYPHONIC SPREE / Adidas / HOOPS Yes! (FC Dallas)
ESSER / I Love You / I Love You
Patrick Wolf / The Magic Position / The Magic Position
T.Raumschmiere / E / E
PORTISHEAD / Third / Machine Gun
DAS KABINETTE / Spy Thriller / The Cabinet
DETEKTIVBYRÅN / E18 / Laka-koffa
CLOUD CULT / The Meaning of 8 / Pretty Voice
THE MOUNTAIN GOATS / Heretic Pride / In The Craters On The Moon
ROSTAM BATMANGLI / Campus / Campus
THE SECTION QUARTET / Fuxxbox / Phenomena
LADYTRON / Velocifero / Ghosts
SERVICES / SXSW 2018 / Presenter
GLUKOZA / GTA4 OST / Schweine
THE TING TINGS / We Started Nothing / That’s Not My Name
Part eight of an array of CD mixes I made for my wife over a long number of years! Read more about it here!
We used to live near this intersection and, while I love the angles and blue, the cover feels lackluster to me despite the ND filter effect (look it up!) and nothing about the typography works.
While I may not love the cover, I do love the mix.
MY ROBOT FRIEND’s ‘Robot High School’ is so fucking catchy.
If you’ve ever heard CLOUD CULT? Their songs? 100% trauma and devastation. Their songs will. Make. You. Weep. Saw them at Chicago’s Metro with a live painter interpreting their sound on-stage which? Yeah, that sounds pretentious, but it was so fucking messy and vulnerable, like we shouldn’t have been able to watch it unfurl.
SHOUT OUT OUT OUT’s ‘Forever Indebted’ is so hooky while also so absolutely crushing and escalates wildly while being brutal about finances, which … resonates even harder now.
I vividly remember playing SONS & DAUGHTERS’ ‘Guilt Complex’ to my wife shortly after a New Years countdown clicked down. For some drunken reason I couldn’t help but flail my arms about and sing along with it. Will she know why? Will you? Nope!
Revisiting these mixes, I am gobsmacked at how many of these bands I saw live, and how many memories I have from them. Hell, I remember leaning over the railing at Metro and singing along to THE KILLS. Make your own experiences, y’all.
Keep clapping. (Artist / Album / Song):
FAKE / You Are Not Dead: A Guide To Modern Living / Past Performance Does Not Guarantee Future Results
THE KILLS / Midnight Bloom / Cheap and Cheerful
MY ROBOT FRIEND / Robot High School / Robot High School
aonami / SXSW 2008 Showcasing Artists / MISODISKO
JONATHAN COULTON / Portal OST / Still Alive
ASA-CHANG & JUNRAY / Jun Ray Song Chang / Hana
VAMPIRE WEEKEND / Stereogum Presents… OKX: A Tribute To OK Computer / Exit Music (For a Film)
CLOUD CULT / Feel Good Ghosts / When Water Comes to Life
MAN MAN / Live at 9:30 Club 6/30/06 / Spooky Jookie
SONS & DAUGHTERS / This Gift / Gift Complex
THE VIOLETS / The Lost Pages / In Your Statue
BODIES OF WATER / Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink / Doves Circled the Sky
MIDNIGHT MOVIES / Nights EP / Nights In White Satin
FEIST / Vanshe Technologic Remix / 1234
SHOUT OUT OUT OUT / Not Saying Just Saying / Forever Indebted
GOGOL BORDELLO / Super Taranta! / Wonderlust King
HOLY FUCK / Holy Fuck / Lovely Allen
THE HYLOZOISTS / La Fin Du Monde / The Man Who Almost Was
A companion piece to INTERRUPT PT. 1, if you will. (Read more about the reasoning behind these mixes here!)
Pretty sure the photo came from a garagesaling expedition of ours and this wringer probably cost $5 and I regret not buying it. I’ll note? I do love the texture.
I also really love this mix. I will always go to bat for THE LONG BLONDES and ‘Big Infatuation’ is absolutely one of my favorites. BALKAN BEAT BOX? So energetic. (Not sure if they’re still around, but I loved seeing ’em live as goddamn did they pop and bop.) THE VIOLETS was a criminally underrated post-punk band that released one album and that was it and it was not enough, at least not for me.
Also, as someone who has seen SLIM CESSNA’S AUTO CLUB live? They really fucking know how to roll with flubs:
She’s a dancer!
She dances fine!
I don’t remember my next line!
So … uh, enjoy!
Track listing (Artist / Album / Song):
HENGAR-UNION SACRED HARP CONVENTION / Anthology of American Folk Music / Antioch 277
BALKAN BEAT BOX / Balkan Beat Box / Bulgarian Chicks
BEIRUT / Gulag Orkestar / Prenzlauerberg
SLIM CESSNA’S AUTO CLUB / Jesus Let Me Down / Unto the Day [LIVE]
SONS & DAUGHTERS / This Gift / Goodbye Service
THE LONG BLONDES / someone to drive you home / Lust in the Movies
TWO TON BOA / Parasiticide / Cash Machine
PEPINPO / 8bp050 / Faster Than Time
65daysofstatic / Unreleased_Unreleasable Vol. 2 / aren’t we all running [feedle] (Yes, I know I typo’ed that in the art but too late now.)
YUKSEK / The Wax – EP / crosswords
BIT SHIFTER / Half-Life / Antenna
BEAK / amoral mayor earwig ep / i saw two of me
DETEKTIVBYRÅN / Hemvägen EP / E18
DIVISION DAY / Covers/Remixes / Enjoy the Silence
TALL DWARFS / That’s the Short and Long of It / Nothing’s Going to Happen
THE VIOLETS / The Lost Pages / Parting Glances
THE MAGNETIC FIELDS / Live on Fair Game with Faith Salie / The Nun’s Litany [acoustic radio]
As I’ve said before, while I really enjoy all of these mixes, I made all of these mix CDs to pass along to my Greek wife. (You can read more about it here!)
If you can see the mix CD cover? You’ll understand why I went this route. I am not a subtle designer! I believe it coincided with a summertime when there were a lot of Greek street festivals as — in Chicago — there are times where you can’t walk a few blocks without running into Greek dancers, but I could be misremembering.
Anyway. That alleyway? I believe I took that photo when we used to live in the Chicago neighborhood of Ravenswood. It was an alleyway along one of my least favorite rentals.
My wife and I lived in Ravenswood intermittently for a few years which, if you are familiar with Chicago? It’s one of the Chicago neighborhoods where a couple moves to from the Loop or a more single-centric district like Wrigleyville or — at the time — Wicker Park or Bucktown, then they adopt a dog to test their relationship and then live there with the dog until they come to an understanding that they can care for the dog so they can also care for kids.
They then have a kid and walk the kid around the neighborhood with a gigantic carriage that takes up most of Chicago’s narrow sidewalks, their forlorn dog by the side taking up the rest of the space, all while taking advantage of an adjacent culturally vibrant queer community — such as our long-lived neighborhood of Andersonville, a neighborhood I’d be happy dying in — without giving anything back.
When the kid is around three or four? They move to the north Chicago suburb of Evanston and slowly slide into a vastly different, oft-existentially depressing life.
It’s a tale as old as time. I have seen this occur to an absurd extent. I’m witnessing it in real-time with a nearby couple. I may sound bitter, but I have reason to be. These neighborhoods I’ve lived in aren’t meant to be transient launching pads for your 30s and to later say you were part of these communities when you actively were not. I’ve seen neighborhoods bled dry by these actions.
I did not expect to pen that much of a tirade. Apologies for too much information, and to anyone reading this who loves Ravenswood and/or moved to Evanston! You are awesome!
I’ll note that this is probably the one mix where I’ve seen almost all of the bands in-person: GOGOL BORDELLO? BEIRUT? DEVOTCHKA? THE PIPETTES? BISHOP ALLEN? EMILIE SIMON? IMOGEN HEAP? CONVERTER — we brought him to Chicago via a short-lived production group! — and there are more!
We were firing on all cylinders then. Props to fellow members Zoe and DJ KY and my wife, who put up with my hard head.
I like the above card I designed that we left at any place in Chicago that would allow it, but we did have issues because I didn’t allow for enough bleed. (We made it work.) Also? That’s the back, hence the lack of venue address. I don’t love the front enough to bother posting it. (Good, vibrant colors. Bad vector conversion regarding the primary photo though.)
And no, that URL no longer works.
I’ve veered wildly off-topic! I don’t love this CD mix cover. The leading sucks. The alleyway isn’t as striking as I’d hoped. It’s not terrible, but it doesn’t quite capture one’s attention.
Highlights? Most of those are about poignancy and melancholy, because maybe I was going through some shit at the time? CAMERA OBSCURA’s late 60s-early 70s throwback bop ‘Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken’. IMOGEN HEAP’s heartbreaking ‘Glittering Heap’. SHRAG’s ‘Hopelessly Wasted’ which feels like one of the most dispirited prom songs ever. Also, the extraordinary sad tale of living life over time via THE DIVINE COMEDY’s ‘Lady of a Certain Age’.
Anyway. Enjoy, despite the fact that I misspelled CONVERTER on the album cover. Sorry about that, CONVERTER! (Your live version of ‘Denogginizer’ is a banger!)
Track listing: (Artist / album / song)
JUF / Gogol Bordello Vs. Tamir Muskat / Super Rifle [BALKAN EXPRESS TRAIN ROBBERY]
BEIRUT / Gulag Orkestar / Mount Wroclai (Idle Days)
Devotchka / Supermelodrama / Curse Your Little
THE LONG BLONDES / Someone to Drive You Home / Separated By Motorways
LOVE IS ALL / Nine Times the Same Song / Used Goods
THE PIPETTES / We Are The Pipettes / Dirty Mind
CAMERA OBSCURA / Let’s Get Out Of This Country / Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken
THE BLOOD BROTHERS / Young Machetes / Spit Shine Your Black Clouds
VALENTINOS / Kitsune Maison 3 / Kafka [Bag Raiders What Y’all Kno ‘Bout Seven] (Erroneously labeled above)
JON SHEFFIELD / One Winter Is Notenuf / Air Supplies, Toothbrush, Etc.
Part five of an array of CD mixes I made for my wife over a long number of years! Read more about it here!
For some reason, my archived playlist kicks off with JÓHANN JÓHANNSON’s ‘The sun’s gone dim and the sky’s turned black’ from his album IBM 1401, a user’s manual. I do not know why I didn’t include it, as my father worked for IBM and I find it to be a very personal song.
So, despite the fact that it’s not actually part of the CD I handed off, I’m including it here.
(It’s worth noting Jóhann is no longer with us, but his music will always remain.)
The cover? A close-up of a porch railing from one of our prior apartments. We were always shocked that it didn’t completely fall apart upon stepping out on it, as it was absolutely carved away by termites.
Highlights? RATATAT’s ‘Lex’ is perfectly constructed to sway to in the middle of the night. SUPERSYSTEM’s ‘White Light White Light’ is a raucous good time. BONDE DO ROLE heavily sample ‘The Final Countdown’ which is nostalgic, well-infused fun. THE LONG BLONDES always entertain and ‘You Could Have Both’ is a very breathless song about lust and desire and allure no matter who it affects, as is par for the course for them.
Lastly? I have no fucking clue how I settled on the title. I’m guessing I may have been suggesting that attention is needed while watching VHS tapes recorded in SP as they’re far shorter than recording in EP format, but I doubt it.
Tracklust, I mean tracklist: Artist / Album / Song!
JÓHANN JÓHANNSON / IBM 1401, a user’s manual / The sun’s gone dim and the sky’s turned black
REGINA SPEKTOR / Begin to Hope / Edit
naomi sample / microballads vol 1 / living auf a satellite
BONDE DO ROLE / Bonde Do Role / Ma´quina de Ricota
null / Okami OST (Vol. 2) / Crimson Helm, Begone!
RATATAT / Classics / Lex
SUPERSYSTEM / A Million Microphones / White Light White Light
Coin-op / null / White Picket
THE LONG BLONDES / Someone To Drive You Home / You Could Have Both
DAVID & THE CITIZENS / S/T / Now She Sleeps In A Box In The Good Soil Of Denmark
MICAH P HINSON / The Baby & The Satellite / The Dreams You Left Behind (Reprise)
DeVotchKa / How It Ends / Such a Lovely Thing
Gál Attila scratch and jew’s harping by Kwikka / Nomada remix album / Aven le Roma! [reCord]
XIU XIU / The Air Force / boy record
MY DAD VS. YOURS / Crossed Soundtrack / Law of Unintended Consequences
